West African Al-Qaeda earns millions

NOUAKCHOTT, June 12, - An Al-Qaeda branch has raked in millions of dollars from ransoms, funding a tiny but well-oiled army whose influence spans large parts of west Africa now too dangerous for tourists, say experts.

There may be only around 300 of them, but Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is highly mobile, well-equipped and omnipresent.

They are involved in drug trafficking and are ready to pay good money to local criminals who bring them western hostages.

The kidnapping of tourists, which began in 2003 when 32 German and Swiss travellers were seized in southern Algeria, has become big business for local thugs.

“The word gets out: ‘we are buying hostages’”, says AQIM expert Louis Capriolo, deputy director of the French internal intelligence service from 1998 to 2004.

“Kidnappings are now carried out by local groups, thugs... who sell their catch,” he said.

“The AQIM men leave their shelters in northern Mali to fetch their prey and move on. Next, the negotiations begin and millions (of dollars) are obtained, allowing large premiums to be paid to the original kidnappers.”

Hostages are seized from areas seen as secure and far from the AQIM bases, a fact which makes tourists think twice before visiting the area where Toubabs (whites) mostly venture these days only for business, under heavy escort.

French researcher Pierre Boilley from the Sorbonne in Paris, a specialist in Sahelian nomads, has been unable to carry out fieldwork in nearly two years.

“My Moorish and Touareg friends who are powerful tribal leaders warn me: ‘Don’t come, even we cannot protect you.’”

“They tell me ‘the youth have become uncontrollable. For some you have become walking gold. And even if you are with us, if it is necessary to catch you and sell you to Al-Qaeda, they will,” he said in an interview in Paris.

Currently AQIM is holding two Spanish nationals kidnapped in Mauritania in November 2009 and a 78-year-old Frenchman kidnapped in northern Niger in April.

In return for their release, they want ransoms of millions of dollars and the release of their members from jail. Many more have been seized and released.

- AFP